Murder of James Bulger

The fact that the suspects were so young came as a shock to investigating officers, headed by Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby, of Merseyside Police. Early press reports and police statements had referred to Bulger being seen with "two youths" (suggesting that the killers were teenagers), the ages of the boys being difficult to ascertain from the images captured by CCTV.[32] Forensic tests confirmed that both boys had the same blue paint on their clothing as found on Bulger's body. Both had blood on their shoes; the blood on Thompson's shoe was matched to Bulger's through DNA tests. A pattern of bruising on Bulger's right cheek matched the features of the upper part of a shoe worn by Thompson; a paint mark in the toecap of one of Venables's shoes indicated he must have used "some force" when he kicked Bulger.[33] Thompson is said to have asked police whether the two-year-old had been taken to hospital to "get him alive again".[34]

Mug shots of Venables and Thompson taken at the time of their arrest

The boys were each charged with the murder of James Bulger on 20 February 1993,[9] and appeared at South Sefton Youth Court on 22 February 1993, where they were remanded in custody to await trial.[10][23] In the aftermath of their arrest, and throughout the media accounts of their trial, the boys were referred to as 'Child A' (Thompson) and 'Child B' (Venables).[2] Awaiting trial, they were held in the secure units where they would eventually be sentenced to be detained indefinitely.[4]

Up to five hundred protesters gathered at South Sefton Magistrates' Court during the boys' initial court appearances. The parents of the accused were moved to different parts of the country and assumed new identities following death threats from vigilantes.[32] The full trial opened at Preston Crown Court on 1 November 1993,[9] conducted as an adult trial with the accused in the dock away from their parents, and the judge and court officials in legal regalia.[35] The boys denied the charges of murder, abduction and attempted abduction.[33] The attempted abduction charge related to an incident at the New Strand Shopping Centre earlier on 12 February 1993, the day of Bulger's death. Thompson and Venables had attempted to lead away another two-year-old boy, but had been prevented by the boy's mother.[14]

Each boy sat in view of the court on raised chairs (so they could see out of the dock designed for adults) accompanied by two social workers. Although they were separated from their parents, they were within touching distance when their families attended the trial. News stories reported the demeanour of the defendants.[36] These aspects were later criticised by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in 1999 that they had not received a fair trial by being tried in public in an adult court.[9] At the trial, the lead prosecution counsel Richard Henriques QC successfully rebutted the principle of doli incapax, which presumes that young children cannot be held legally responsible for their actions.[37]

Thompson and Venables were considered by the court to be capable of "mischievous discretion", meaning an ability to act with criminal intent as they were mature enough to understand that they were doing something seriously wrong.[38] A child psychiatrist, Eileen Vizard, who interviewed Thompson before the trial, was asked in court whether he would know the difference between right and wrong, that it was wrong to take a young child away from his mother, and that it was wrong to cause injury to a child. Vizard replied, "If the issue is on the balance of probabilities, I think I can answer with certainty." Vizard also said that Thompson was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after the attack on Bulger.[39] Susan Bailey, the Home Office forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Venables, said unequivocally that he knew the difference between right and wrong.[40]

Thompson and Venables did not speak during the trial, and the case against them was based to a large extent on the more than 20 hours of tape-recorded police interviews with the boys, which were played back in court.[37] Thompson was considered to have taken the leading role in the abduction process, though it was Venables who had apparently initiated the idea of taking Bulger to the railway line. Venables later described how Bulger seemed to like him, holding his hand and allowing him to pick him up on the meandering journey to the scene of his murder.[4] Laurence Lee, who was the solicitor of Venables during the trial, later said that Thompson was one of the most frightening children he had seen, and compared him to the Pied Piper.[41] After his appearances in court, Venables would strip off his clothes, saying "I can smell James like a baby smell."[34] The prosecution admitted a number of exhibits during the trial, including a box of 27 bricks, a blood-stained stone, Bulger's underpants, and the rusty iron bar described as a railway fishplate. The pathologist spent 33 minutes outlining the injuries sustained by Bulger; many of those to his legs had been inflicted after he was stripped from the waist down. Brain damage was extensive and included a haemorrhage.[42]

The boys, by then aged 11, were found guilty of Bulger's murder at the Preston court on 24 November 1993, becoming the youngest convicted murderers of the 20th century.[43] The judge, Mr Justice Morland, told Thompson and Venables that they had committed a crime of "unparalleled evil and barbarity... In my judgment, your conduct was both cunning and very wicked."[44] Morland sentenced them to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, with a recommendation that they should be kept in custody for "very, very many years to come", recommending a minimum term of eight years.[9] At the close of the trial, the judge lifted reporting restrictions and allowed the names of the killers to be released, saying "I did this because the public interest overrode the interest of the defendants... There was a need for an informed public debate on crimes committed by young children."[45] Sir David Omand later criticised this decision and outlined the difficulties created by it in his 2010 review of the probation service's handling of the case.[46]

Shortly after the trial, and after the judge had recommended a minimum sentence of eight years, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, the Lord Chief Justice, recommended that the two boys should serve a minimum of ten years,[9] which would have made them eligible for release in February 2003 at the age of 20. The editors of the Sun newspaper handed a petition bearing nearly 280,000 signatures to Home Secretary Michael Howard, in a bid to increase the time spent by both boys in custody.[47] This campaign was successful, and in July 1994, Howard announced that the boys would be kept in custody for a minimum of fifteen years,[47][48] meaning that they would not be considered for release until February 2008, by which time they would be 25 years old.[9]

Lord Donaldson criticised Howard's intervention, describing the increased tariff as "institutionalised vengeance ... [by] a politician playing to the gallery."[9] The increased minimum term was overturned in 1997 by the House of Lords that ruled it "unlawful" for the Home Secretary to decide on minimum sentences for young offenders.[49] The High Court and European Court of Human Rights have since ruled that, though the parliament may set minimum and maximum terms for individual categories of crime, it is the responsibility of the trial judge, with the benefit of all the evidence and argument from both prosecution and defence counsel, to determine the minimum term in individual criminal cases.[48]

Tony Blair, then Shadow Home Secretary, gave a speech in Wellingborough during which he said: "We hear of crimes so horrific they provoke anger and disbelief in equal proportions... These are the ugly manifestations of a society that is becoming unworthy of that name."[9] Prime Minister John Major said that "society needs to condemn a little more, and understand a little less."[9] The trial judge Mr. Justice Morland stated that exposure to violent videos might have encouraged the actions of Thompson and Venables, but this was disputed by David Maclean, the Minister of State at the Home Office at the time, who pointed out that police had found no evidence linking the case with "video nasties".[50]

Some British tabloid newspapers claimed that the attack on Bulger was inspired by the film Child's Play 3, and campaigned for the rules on "video nasties" to be tightened.[51] During the police investigation, it emerged that Child's Play 3 was one of the films that Jon Venables' father had rented in the months prior to the killing, but it was not established that Venables had ever watched it.[52][53] One scene in the film shows the malevolent doll Chucky being splashed with blue paint during a paintball game. A Merseyside detective said, "We went through something like 200 titles rented by the Venables family. There were some you or I wouldn't want to see, but nothing—no scene, or plot, or dialogue—where you could put your finger on the freeze button and say that influenced a boy to go out and commit murder."[50] Inspector Ray Simpson of Merseyside Police commented: "If you are going to link this murder to a film, you might as well link it to The Railway Children".[54] The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 clarified the rules on the availability of certain types of video material to children.[9][55]

After the trial, Thompson was held at the Barton Moss Secure Care Centre in Manchester.[7] Venables was detained in Vardy House, a small eight-bedded unit at Red Bank secure unit in St. Helens on Merseyside. These locations were not publicly known until after the boys' release.[4] Details of the boys' lives were recorded twice daily on running sheets and signed by the member of staff who had written them. The records were stored at the units and copied to officials in Whitehall. The boys were taught to conceal their real names and the crime they had committed which resulted in their being in the units. Venables' parents regularly visited their son at Red Bank, just as Thompson's mother did, every three days, at Barton Moss.[4] The boys received education and rehabilitation; despite initial problems, Venables was said to have eventually made good progress at Red Bank, resulting in him being kept there for the full eight years, despite the facility only being a short-stay remand unit.[4] Both boys, however, were reported to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, and Venables in particular told of experiencing nightmares and flashbacks of the murder.[4]

In 1999, lawyers for Thompson and Venables appealed to the European Court of Human Rights that the boys' trial had not been impartial, since they were too young to follow proceedings and understand an adult court. The European Court dismissed their claim that the trial was inhuman and degrading treatment, but upheld their claim they were denied a fair hearing by the nature of the court proceedings.[56][57] The European Court also held that Michael Howard's intervention had led to a "highly charged atmosphere", which resulted in an unfair judgment.[58] On 15 March 1999, the court in Strasbourg ruled by 14 votes to five that there had been a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the fairness of the trial of Thompson and Venables, stating: "The public trial process in an adult court must be regarded in the case of an 11-year-old child as a severely intimidating procedure."[35]

In September 1999, Bulger's parents appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but failed to persuade the court that a victim of a crime has the right to be involved in determining the sentence of the perpetrator.[9][59] The European Court case led to the new Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, reviewing the minimum sentence. In October 2000, he recommended the tariff be reduced from ten to eight years,[9] adding that young offender institutions were a "corrosive atmosphere" for the juveniles.[60]

In June 2001, after a six-month review, the parole board ruled the boys were no longer a threat to public safety and could be released as their minimum tariff had expired in February of that year. The Home Secretary David Blunkett approved the decision, and they were released a few weeks later on lifelong licence after serving eight years.[61][62] Both men "were given new identities and moved to secret locations under a 'witness protection'-style programme."[63] This was supported by the fabrication of passports, national insurance numbers, qualification certificates and medical records. Blunkett added his own conditions to their licence and insisted on being sent daily updates on the men's actions.[4]

The terms of their release included the following: they were not allowed to contact each other or Bulger's family; they were prohibited from visiting the Merseyside region;[64] curfews may be imposed on them and they must report to probation officers. If they breached the rules or were deemed a risk to the public, they could be returned to prison.[65] An injunction was imposed on the media after the trial, preventing the publication of details about Thompson and Venables. The worldwide injunction was kept in force following their release on parole, so their new identities and locations could not be published.[9][66][67] Blunkett stated in 2001: "The injunction was granted because there was a real and strong possibility that their lives would be at risk if their identities became known."[65]

Shortly before his 2001 release, when aged 17, Venables was alleged to have had sex with a woman who worked at the Red Bank secure unit where he was held. In April 2011, in the aftermath of his 2010 imprisonment, these allegations were outlined in a Sunday Times Magazine article written by David James Smith, who had been following the Bulger case since the 1993 trial, and again later in a BBC documentary titled Jon Venables: What Went Wrong? The female staff member was accused of sexual misconduct and suspended; she never returned to work at Red Bank.[4][93] A spokesman for St Helens Borough Council denied that the incident had been covered up, saying: "All allegations were thoroughly investigated by an independent team on the orders of the Home Office and chaired by Arthur de Frischling, a retired prison governor."[94] Venables began living independently in March 2002. Some time thereafter, he began a relationship with a woman who had a five-year-old child. It is not known whether Venables had already begun downloading child pornography at the time of dating the woman, though he denies having ever met the child. In 2005, when Venables was 23, his probation officer met another girlfriend of his, who was aged 17. After a number of "young girlfriends", it was presumed that Venables was having a delayed adolescence.[4] After a period of apparently reduced supervision, Venables began excessively drinking, taking drugs, downloading child pornography, as well as visiting Merseyside (a breach of his licence). In 2008, a new probation officer noted that he spent "a great deal of leisure time" playing video games and on the Internet. In September that year, Venables was arrested on suspicion of affray, following a fight outside a nightclub; he claimed he was acting in self-defence and the charges were later dropped after he agreed to go on an alcohol-awareness course. Three months later he was found to be in possession of cocaine; he was subjected to a curfew.[4] On two separate occasions, Venables revealed his true identity to a friend.[7]

On 2 March 2010, the Ministry of Justice revealed that Jon Venables had been returned to prison for an unspecified violation of the terms of his licence of release. The Justice Secretary Jack Straw stated that Venables had been returned to prison because of "extremely serious allegations", and stated that he was "unable to give further details of the reasons for Jon Venables's return to custody, because it was not in the public interest to do so."[95] On 7 March, Venables was returned to prison accused of child pornography offences.[96][97][98]

In a statement to the House of Commons on 8 March 2010, Jack Straw reiterated that it was "not in the interest of justice" to reveal the reason why Venables had been returned to custody.[99] Baroness Butler-Sloss, the judge who made the decision to grant Venables anonymity in 2001, warned that he could be killed if his new identity was revealed.[100]

Bulger's mother, Denise Fergus, said that she was angry that the parole board did not tell her that Venables had been returned to prison, and called for his anonymity to be removed if he was charged with a crime.[101] A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice stated that there is a worldwide injunction against publication of either killer's location or new identity.[102]

Venables's return to prison revived a false claim that a man from Fleetwood, Lancashire was Jon Venables. The claim was reported and dismissed in September 2005,[103] but reappeared in March 2010 when it was circulated widely via SMS messages and Facebook.[104]

Chief Inspector Tracie O'Gara of Lancashire Constabulary stated: "An individual who was targeted four-and-a-half years ago was not Jon Venables and now he has left the area."[105][106]

On 21 June 2010, Venables was charged with possession and distribution of indecent images of children. It was alleged that he had downloaded 57 indecent images of children over a 12-month period to February 2010, and allowed other people to access the files through a peer-to-peer network. Venables faced two charges under the Protection of Children Act 1978.[107][108] On 23 July 2010, Venables appeared at a court hearing at the Old Bailey via a video link, visible only to the judge hearing the case.[109] He pleaded guilty to charges of downloading and distributing child pornography, and was given a sentence of two years' imprisonment.[110]

At the court hearing, it emerged that Venables had posed in online chat rooms as 35-year-old Dawn "Dawnie" Smith, a married woman from Liverpool who boasted about abusing her 8-year-old daughter, in the hope of obtaining further child pornography. Venables had contacted his probation officer in February 2010, fearing that his new identity had been compromised at his place of work. When the officer arrived at his flat, Venables was attempting to remove or destroy the hard drive of his computer with a knife and a tin opener.[4] The officer's suspicions were aroused, and the computer was taken away for examination leading to the discovery of the child pornography, which included children as young as two being raped by adults[111][112] and penetrative rape of seven- or eight-year-olds.[4]

The judge, Mr Justice Bean, ruled that Venables's new identity could not be revealed, but the media were allowed to report that he had been living in Cheshire at the time of his arrest.[113][114] The High Court also heard that Venables had been arrested on suspicion of affray in September 2008, following a drunken street fight with another man. Later the same year, he was cautioned for possession of cocaine.[115]

In November 2010, a review of the National Probation Service handling of the case by Sir David Omand found that probation officers could not have prevented Venables from downloading child pornography. Harry Fletcher, the assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, commented that only 24-hour surveillance would have prevented Venables from downloading the material.[46][116]

Venables was eligible for parole in July 2011. On 27 June 2011, the parole board decided that Venables would remain in custody, and that his parole would not be considered again for at least another year.[117]

On 4 May 2011, it was reported that Venables would once again be given a new identity, following what was described as a "serious security breach" which revealed an identity that he had been using before his imprisonment in 2010. Details of the breach could not be reported for legal reasons.[118] A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice commented: "Such a change of identity is extremely rare and granted only when the police assess that there is clear and credible evidence of a sustained threat to the offender's life on release into the community."[119] The incident occurred after a man from Exeter posted photographs on a website devoted to identifying paedophiles, allegedly showing Venables as an adult and giving his name.[120]

In November 2011, it was reported that officials had decided that Venables would stay in prison for the foreseeable future, as he would be likely to reveal his true identity if released. A Ministry of Justice spokesman declined to comment on the reports.[121] On 4 July 2013, it was reported that the Parole Board for England and Wales had approved the release of Venables.[122][123] On 3 September 2013, it was reported that Venables had been released from prison.[124]

On 23 November 2017, it was reported that Venables had again been recalled to prison for possession of child abuse imagery. The Ministry of Justice declined to comment on the reports.[125] On 5 January 2018, Venables was charged with unspecified offences relating to indecent images of children.[126]

On 7 February 2018, Venables pleaded guilty to possession of indecent images of children for a second time. He pleaded guilty via video link to three charges of making indecent images of children and one of possessing a paedophile manual. He admitted being in possession of 392 category A, 148 category B, and 630 category C child pornography images, and was sentenced to three years and four months in prison. In September 2020, he was denied parole.[127]

On 4 March 2019, Bulger's father Ralph lost a legal challenge to lift the lifelong order protecting Venables' anonymity. Judge Sir Andrew McFarlane turned down the request, saying that the "uniquely notorious" nature of the case meant that "There is a strong possibility, if not a probability, that if his identity were known he would be pursued resulting in grave and possibly fatal consequences."[128]

In late June 2019, it was reported that British officials had considered resettling Venables in either Canada, Australia or New Zealand due to the high costs behind protecting his anonymity. British authorities had reportedly spent £65,000 in legal fees to keep Venables' identity a secret.[129][130] In response to media coverage, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern remarked that Venables would need an exemption under the Immigration Act and that he should not "bother applying".[131][132]